With so much email marketing noise in the world, one effective way to engage subscribers and foster future brand loyalty is through storytelling. Where the email marketing approach generally focuses on a sale or promotional opportunity, integrating storytelling within an email marketing campaign creates a more humanized experience with emotional appeal and unforgettable interactions that reach the reader divinely. In the end, over time, such loyalty from trusted storytelling makes for loyal subscribers and renders the brand human and trustworthy. Therefore, this article discusses how storytelling within email marketing fosters brand loyalty and how to effectively do it.
Storytelling as a Mechanism for Engagement
Storytelling transforms dull emails into narratives that people yearn to explore. When you structure your branding message like a narrative, it makes subscribers more invested because, instead of focusing on what’s being sold, they get captivated. And because so much of messaging is visual and auditory (aka written), storytelling appeals to this method of least resistance. Warmy.io helps ensure that these compelling, story-driven emails actually land in the inbox where they can be read and appreciated by improving sender reputation and deliverability. Once people become captivated by a story, it becomes more relatable to them, and when people care about what they read, they’re more likely to remain engaged not just for one message but over time as their commitment grows for what you have to offer.
Creating Brand Loyalty Through Emotional Connections
The end goal of brand loyalty is an emotional connection, which can be built gradually over time via storytelling. People enjoy stories that they can relate to with emotional valiance, whether it’s an inspirational piece or a tragic downfall. When your content showcases how you’ve come to where you are almost like the tale of your own struggles, triumphs, and downfalls people start to realize this is their story, too. Eventually, those who recognize that they have an emotional bond with you will want to continue that bond in the future, beyond any singular email.
Brand Identity & Value Reinforcement Through Storytelling
Storytelling helps reinforce identity and values because now the recipients get a stronger understanding of who you are based upon the stories you tell, especially where they give insight into the mission and vision. The greater one understands their brand through consistent efforts at content creation and stories that link back to the fundamental efforts, the more brands have certainty about how they want to be perceived. This leads to transparency in expectations met from both sides for brand and subscriber/audience when a connection is made based on clarity. Those who resonate with the value systems expressed through storytelling become forever loyal listeners.
Growing Subscriber Trust Through Authentic Storytelling
Ultimately, you grow trust with your subscribers through storytelling. Trust is a big part of longevity, and loyal subscribers need to trust your brand, so transparency is important. Whether you have an origin story that explains how your founder got to where they are or an appropriate story of a real customer struggle or success, being the credible source to share the story helps your subscribers engage with the information better because they’re appreciative of your transparency. By using authenticity to your advantage, you show your vulnerable human side, which allows for a better human-to-human connection. When subscribers trust that what you’re saying to them is true and that a transparent business is being honest with them, they’re more likely to come back for more.
Making Your Brand More Relatable Through Storytelling
Brands become more relatable through stories. Companies can add human elements to their marketing through real people, real situations, or real feelings that subscribers can empathize with and relate to. Relatable stories help champion successes when subscribers can see the struggles or processes behind the curtain.
Thus, whether you feature your team members as part of the story or use customer success stories as part of the campaign, the right context makes your brand more relatable. When subscribers can view brands as people or at least acknowledge that successful companies can operate genuinely, they’re naturally much more bonded over time.
Building Anticipation Through Storytelling
You can build anticipation from your subscribers through storytelling with follow-ups and cliffhangers. For example, if a story is told over the course of a few email releases, subscribers will want to open each additional release to see what happens next. Even cliffhangers, strategically used, create buzz because an unfinished story promotes natural curiosity. Thus, knowing stories can go on and on increases open rates because people want to be kept in the loop about what’s next. Ultimately, making people feel something through the anticipated story builds further engagement and loyalty over time.
Subscriber Engagement through Personalized Stories
People love a good story, and storytelling is one of the best forms of personalization, as the personalization of stories inherently boosts subscriber engagement. This is because stories become relevant to someone’s desires, actions, or interests at that very moment. Marketers have access to a wealth of story-generating data based on subscriber action. Thus, the story generated will be true to their journey. When someone hears something that makes emotional sense, it relates to their mind at that very moment. The more personalized, the better. Thus, the more emotional connection involved. This deeper embedded engagement occurs because when people see a brand that understands them this way, they grow a deeper connection and loyalty to the brand because it’s clear that the brand constantly helps them with relevant information that is engaging for them.
Storytelling That Evokes Nostalgia
People love a good nostalgic story, and storytelling can play into this emotional response. Nostalgia is something that people hold near and dear to their hearts and minds as it reflects back upon memories and associations from the past. Therefore, when emailed stories contain nostalgia or integrative aspects of nostalgia it helps people remember and associate something good with your brand. Nostalgia is emotionally relevant and thus helps people feel like they are a part of something bigger, learning and appreciating connections to the past. Therefore, nostalgia gives brands something to work with and something good to brand about, and when brands do well with nostalgia, they breed loyalty since people feel good about what the brand did to help them remember and new memories are created from the old to foster this new emotional connection.
Inviting Subscriber Participation through Storytelling for Community
The more people are engaged through storytelling, the more likely they will become loyal from embedded community connections. For example, if consumers are told that their stories will be shared as feedback or experiences gained with a brand, they’re more likely to integrate themselves as part of the journey. Engagement further cements emotional connections, and a sense of belonging allows them to feel inclusive within your brand community. Thus, when feedback is used or thanks are given in public with honesty and transparency, engaged subscribers naturally become loyal brand champions because they know firsthand how authenticity and gratitude work through true stories for real experiences and they will share those stories with others.
Telling Stories Based on Subscriber Journeys Keeps Everything Relevant
The beauty of storytelling through email is that it can be relevant to subscriber journeys. If a marketer knows where someone is in their journey, then an appropriate story can be told. For example, someone who just subscribed can benefit from an email featuring the story of how a brand came to be. Someone who’s been there for a little while may need stimulation via a push to action through a story about how much the brand loves its subscribers. When stories can be appropriately told based on where someone is in their journey, people stay invested on an emotional level and love the feeling that their story is being told because it puts them in a position where they feel valued and connected for the appropriate reasons over time.
Sustained Effectiveness When You Can Measure Results
One major factor in storytelling effectiveness is the ability to measure results and ensure continued effectiveness. When stories connect people to experiences they’ve had as subscribers thus far, they help marketers know what’s effective. Open rates, people clicking on links in the email to learn more about what’s being referenced within the story, engagement and feedback the more, the better. Marketers should always want to ensure that their stories are effective, resonate with the expected emotional response, and are personalized enough, based on measurable factors to do the trick. The greater the measurement, the greater improvements can be made over time for sustained effectiveness and reliability, which breeds better subscriber loyalty.
Sustained Engagement When People Hear Stories Consistently/Regularly
One way to engage people is to tell them stories. But the quality has to be there. As long as compelling stories are sent out consistently, people will engage and appreciate the consistent communication that fulfills them emotionally.
Moreover, if stories go a long way in helping brands learn, grow, and transform over time, then hearing stories consistently can help subscribers see how much time and effort went into the final funded project and can keep them loyal over time. Engaged subscribers who are hearing from a brand and absorbing at all levels will create an instantaneous emotional connection with a brand and support it long-term when it shows it appreciates them through storytelling.
Emotional Engagement through Visual Storytelling
The influence of visual storytelling on email narrative effectiveness is that it grabs attention and emotionally engages. From images to videos to infographics, storytelling occurs through visuals, and learning becomes easier when it’s shown instead of told. Emotion and important themes can be conveyed through visuals more effectively and quickly than a narrative could, showing them simultaneously. Therefore, through effective storytelling with visuals and increased emotional engagement, subscribers are kept engaged in the process because they want to learn more about what your brand has to offer.
Loyalty-Building Stories that Reinforce Subscribers’ Sense of Self
When stories reinforce a subscriber’s sense of self, they have an identity connection that makes them relevant and emotionally engaging. These stories allow brands to prove how much they know their subscribers and how much they appreciate who they are. Therefore, as stories repeat about placing subscribers in a positive light whether their ethics, ambitions, wishes, etc. they become more open to subsequent engagement because they appreciate being valued for their loyalty. Ultimately, stories that reinforce a subscriber’s sense of self make them loyal brand ambassadors who want to spread the word about an entity that appreciates who they are.
Balancing Promotional and Story-Driven Content
The need to establish this happy medium of storytelling versus promotional efforts is crucial for the longevity of subscriber engagement, as the balance of overwhelming an audience or mitigating the effectiveness of your endeavors is necessary. Sending all stories as efforts with the intent to promote sending subscribers down a purchasing or experiential rabbit hole certainly has the potential to engage. Yet too many engagement requests will leave subscribers fatigued from seeing the same request time and again, disillusioned by constant favors and emotional disconnect, leading them to hit unsubscribe. On the other hand, sending stories without the intent to promote gives subscribers a respite of reading, adopting a passive approach, as your campaign has no true purpose but engagement to merely get them to read.
Finally, assessing the effectiveness helps marketers determine what’s the best balance, time and time again, so slight adjustments can be made early on and over time for the best subscriber experience overall. Should open rates be stellar and click-through rates wane to zero, there’s a problem that needs to be fixed sooner rather than later. But in addition, great engagement with poor conversion rates means that while marketers have enticed others, they’ve failed to properly convey the last message about why they should accept what they’re selling and trust in whatever they’ve presented, as it’s hard to choose to do so based on face value alone.
When a brand finds this balance consistently over time and builds trust from its readers, it’s apparent that there’s trust beyond why they can sell; they’ve been bought and engaged with time and time again because they value good communication over pure transaction purpose. Thus, balancing strong promotional potential and necessary attribution to strong storytelling will maintain strong and deeper connections for now and in the future as subscribers will remain loyal because their existence within the brand’s ability was meaningful without future ulterior motives.
